The jumpingaround.com crew came up with a concept two years ago to help Australian Young Riders get some overseas experience and see what is really happening in the Northern Hemisphere. To find the eventual winner, qualifiers were held around Australia with the the top Young Riders from each state coming to the Final which was held at Treehaven Equestrian Club in Victoria, Australia.,

The winner of the series wins a trip to Ireland where they get instruction from a top trainer and then get the opportunity to compete at a major show while in Ireland - this is fully sponsored by jumpingaround.com as our continued commitment to helping young Australian showjumpers.

Thanks go to AMMO Allwormers for providing product for every qualifying event around Australia - this was most appreciated and Mark Day from AMMO also sponsored the final held at Treehaven Equestrian Club.

The 2005 winner was South Australian Amy Graham who has been competing very successfully all around Australia and competed in the jumpingaround.com Young Rider Challenge series in both Queensland and South Australia with her team of horses.

On winning the trip Amy and her mother asked whether it was possible for Amy's Groom, Zoie to join the experience as thanks for all her hard work throughout the year as part of Amy's dedicated support team and of course jumpingaround.com were delighted to have Zoie along.

As some background - the easy part of the tour is organising the airflights - the hardest part is organising the borrowed horse! The important thing from our perspective is that the recipient of the prize gets a quality horse to ride - one that they would like to "pack up and take home with them"! The purpose of the trip is to expand the rider's experiences and let's face it, at home in Australia they can ride "shitters" - they don't need to come overseas to do that!

To find horses of the quality we want, which the owners are prepared to lend to an unknown rider is not always easy - and this second year of running the series proved to be most difficult - everytime we found a quality horse, it was sold, which at least proves we were looking at top quality horses but it made it difficult.

Amy and Zoie arrived a week prior to their "official" part of their trip starting, joining the jumpingaround.com crew in Switzerland to see the European Championships for Junior and Young Riders and this definitely was an eye opener on many counts. Amy was amazed at the height, width and technicality of the tracks but was also most impressed at the standard of horses and riders.

On the final day of the European Championships we were still looking for a horse and it was then that Irish Junior rider, Nicola Fitzgibbon and her parents offered the loan of their 7 year old Dutch bred mare, Joie de Vivre, which is owned by Kathryn Fitzgibbon. This mare has been very successful throughout Ireland winning many Young Rider classes and also jumping 1.20m/1.30m and 1.40m classes with many wins and placings over the 18 months Nicola has had her.

Nicola, one of Ireland's top Juniors, was part of the Irish team which came 2nd in Compiegne, France last month and they placed 4th at the European Championships last week where Nicola also placed =6th in the Individuals, which sees her as the 6th top Junior rider in Europe.

So things were set - we had a horse for Amy! We arrived back in Ireland on Monday, July 11th and on Tuesday we collected Joie de Vivre from the stables she had been kept ticking over while Nicola was competing in Switzerland and then took her to Harmony Cottage Farm in Carbury, County Kildare.

Our thanks to Harmony Cottage Farm for the support of our series and its winner by providing stabling for the horse from Tuesday through to Saturday. Mick and Tony O'Sullivan and Mark Devey run a state of the art Training Facility which boasts a full Derby Course, Grand Prix jumping arena, 500m gallop track, cross country course and some of the most scenic and safe hacking trails in the country and our thanks to them for their support of jumpingaround.com's Young Rider Challenge series.

Nicola was keen and happy to give Amy a hand on Tuesday with Joie de Vivre and it was great to see how quickly Amy got on with the mare and Nicola was delighted with the way her horse was ridden. Amy enjoyed the feel of a horse with such a high level of education on the flat but noticed how different she was to ride, especially over the fences.

Wednesday saw Amy getting to know the mare by hacking her out and then again riding her later in the day in the arena, working on the flat and popping a few fences again.

Thursday was the big day - Cmdt. John Ledingham came to train Amy and Joie de Vivre! To say Amy was nervous would be an understatement - but to have a trainer of the caliber of John Ledingham is an opportunity that doesn't come along every day. John's record is incredible - he rode 63 Nations Cups for Ireland, won the Hickstead Derby three times, rode at 3 World Championships, European Championships and Olympics and his list of wins is too long to start and I would be worried about leaving something out.

John is also the Chairman of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland's Coaching and was the Team Manager for the Irish showjumping, dressage and eventing teams at Athens Olympics and next week he heads to San Patrignano as the Chef d'Equip for the Irish team at the Senior European Championships.Pinning down a man as busy as John was not easy and we appreciated very much that he suffered through 2 hours of Irish traffic jams to come to Harmony Cottage for Amy's session.

The lesson went very well with John impressed with Amy's riding and very happy with the two as a combination - everyone was very confident that the coming weeks' competition at Balmoral for the National Championships would go well.

Watch for Amy's description of her session and what she has learned in her time here over the next few days.

Amy will be competing at Balmoral in Belfast, Northern Ireland from Sunday, 17th July through to Thursday 21st July at the National Championships. Amy and Joie de Vivre will be competing in the 1.20m Young Rider classes through the week and jumpingaround.com will be bringing you results and news from the show.

The all important poles on the ground were first on the list for Amy and Joie de Vivre after a good warmup to engage the mare behind.

This mare has not only competed in showjumping but has done Dressage Ireland competitions with Nicola and she has placed well which is not surprising as she moves exceptionally well.